Variance
by omens
Summary: “Figures he’d go for her.” In which Alex and Juliet discuss Justin, his new girlfriend, and the pattern she falls in. Oneshot.


**Name:** Chris

**Title:** Variance

**Fandom:** Wizards of Waverly Place

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** K

**Summary:** "Figures he'd go for her." In which Alex and Juliet discuss Justin, his new girlfriend, and the pattern she falls in. Oneshot.

_A little bit of randomness that just kind of came out. : )_

……

"_I think it'd make things easier, if we were related." _

"_How would that make things easier?" _

"_I wouldn't have to choose." _

"_You know what I think? I think we'd go to hell." _

_- ocho, theidiotgirl_

……

Alex grits her teeth and sinks further down on the couch. Trying to drown out the obnoxious peels of giggles from the dining room table is pointless. Justin and…whatever her name is, refuse to just shut up.

With a groan designed to let them know that yes, it is their fault, she shuts the TV off and makes a big display of grabbing her jacket and leaving the loft.

She knows they notice by how silent it gets and she can feel Justin's eyes on her back, but neither of them say anything to her as she stomps past them and down the stairs into the sub shop where the noise is less annoying and expected, not forced and so lame and finally out onto the crowded streets of Waverly Place.

And now she feels like she can finally breathe.

She gets an ice cream from the vendor outside Greenwald's and wanders up and down the street, just seeing what the Saturday vendors have out for sale today and ignoring the eyes of Bobby Bluefield from the pharmacy, who comes into the restaurant on all of his breaks and just can't seem to accept no for an answer. Alex walks and walks until her first, then her second, ice cream is gone and then she grabs some random fashion magazine from the corner newsstand and sits on the bench beside the hardware store.

This was not how her Saturday was supposed to go.

It was supposed to be her, the couch, the contents of the fridge, and a Night of the Halloween Sorority Party Disaster marathon.

Justin and his new girlfriend added in were not a part of her plan.

Perfect Saturday + Geek Love = Disaster - Alex.

See, she can do math when she really wants to.

There's a lot of peripheral movement going on about her that she doesn't notice. It's Saturday in New York and still fairly warm, you can't breathe outside without hitting someone. So it takes her a few minutes to get that that feeling of someone looking at her is coming from pretty close and she looks up.

"Jeeze." She jerks a little, and raises her hand up to her chest. "You scared the daylights out of me."

Juliet shrugs sheepishly and gives her a small smile. "Sorry. I saw you walking a path up and down the street earlier and just wanted to make sure you were okay."

It takes a lot of willpower not to wrinkle her nose in distaste. Alex never really had anything against Juliet, but tolerating her overly sweetness was a tough bill when she and Justin were actually together. Now that they had been apart for a few weeks it was worse. But the image of Justin's scandalized face if he found out she was rude to his ex begins to loop inside her brain and she doesn't shove the vampire off the bench.

"I'm fine." Before the gentle needling she knows is coming can work its way out of Juliet's mouth, she just blurts it all out. "Justin has this girl over and all that giggling and yapping and 'Oh, you're so cute' was getting on my nerves."

"Oh."

Juliet's voice is kind of small, kind of sad and crap, now Alex feels bad.

For the record, she doesn't do the whole girlfriends thing. She has Harper but she's, well, _Harper_ and she blames that whole Tutor thing on the elfishness. As far as regular, run of the mill, girl to girl stuff she'd really rather not. There's only so much estrogen she can handle.

(Yes. She learned that word from Justin. There's a joke in there somewhere that she's coming back to later.)

Back to the point is that Alex was only trying to get Juliet to leave her alone and has managed to hurt her feelings.

Just because she doesn't like her doesn't mean she dislikes her.

Or something.

"Juliet, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

Shaking her head, she looks at Alex with those kind eyes of hers that Justin used to talk about. "Its okay, Alex. I broke up with him, right? I shouldn't care that he's dating someone new."

"Yeah, about that," Alex says, laying her magazine down, "I thought you were in Whatchacallitstan or something. Isn't that why you and Justin broke up in the first place?"

Truth be told; the vampire teenager boarding school thing always sounded a bit fishy to her.

"It was Canada actually," Juliet tells her. She sighs and leans back against the wall of the hardware store. "And," she breaks off, looking around quickly "you can keep a secret, can't you?"

If she wants to. "Totally."

"It was only a reunion," Juliet confesses. "I was gone for a week."

That floors Alex for a second and she can feel her mouth gaping open. Mostly because Juliet's story was so convincing. Alex is good at sniffing out other people's lies, being such a good liar herself.

She has no problem admitting that. It's a handy skill to posses.

"Wait, you mean you told Justin that long distance relationships never work out and you've been here this whole time?"

Juliet looks pitiful as she nods, and oh no, sniffles a little. "I've done this before, Alex. I can see the signs when its time to pull the plug on a relationship."

That happens when you're like 500 years old Alex supposes. But there is a time for telling the truth, as much as she hates to admit it, and this is it.

"What were you gonna do when you ran into Justin? You live right down the street."

She shrugs. "I'm a vampire. I can turn invisible."

Wow. That's sorta cool. "Yeah?" Huh. If she could do that…

Alex snaps herself out of her daydreaming when it occurs to her that, duh, she can do that. Well, once she learns the spell she can. There are various ways of disguise that have been working pretty well for her so far. And then there are the memory spells, the confusion spells, McReary Timereary…

Invisible would just be another way to skip class and Mr. Laritate's suspicion is growing. Better to lay low.

"So who's this new girl?"

Alex wracks her brain. Justin introduced Alex to her when he brought her in, but like she was actually going to pay attention? Please. Not when the killer was advancing on the star and her boyfriend in the parked car in the woods. That's when the good stuff starts.

"Um…Chloe, Carly…" She tries to form up a picture in her head and the only thing that she can recall is the tinny horse laughter. "I don't remember. But she had flat hair and old lady shoes."

The important stuff, that sticks.

Juliet worries her bottom lip between her teeth, causing Alex to wince. If she bites herself Alex will have no choice but to laugh. That's gotta be Vampire 101 or something.

"Callie?" Juliet guesses and yes, that's it. She frowns, and now Alex is just confused.

"Is that bad?"

"She used to try to flirt with Justin whenever she came into the Late Night Bite. Uh," she kicks at a pebble with her shoe, "I knew she was after him."

With nothing else to contribute really (she doesn't do sympathy) she buys Juliet an ice cream when she goes to get one more for herself.

Another secret? She took the money out of Max's piggy bank.

"Thanks." Juliet takes the cone and sighs again, the sound coming like it comes from way down deep and possibly hurts. Licking the chocolate, she leans in conspiratorially and asks, "How bad is she?"

"Oh my God," Alex answers around a mouthful, "she's awful. She's one of those girls who spends all her time with a guy telling him how cute he is and how smart, and OMG, just so sweet." She grimaces. "The kind that you want to trip in the hallway."

Not that she's done that of course.

Laughing, Juliet wipes her mouth with a napkin. "Figures he'd go for her."

"Seriously. The rest have been reasonably okay so now he has to pick the horrible one." Alex is faster than Juliet and tosses her own napkin into the garbage can on the other end of the bench where Juliet is sitting. "You were nowhere near that obnoxious."

Making a face, Juliet nods her head slowly. "I'm gonna take that as a compliment."

"Oh it was," Alex assures her.

"Callie," Juliet scoffs. "God, could she be any more of the stereotypical airhead? She even pretended once that she couldn't work the straw dispenser."

Alex laughs. "No way?" Off Juliet's nod she chuckles harder. "That's just sad." And the idea of Justin actually asking out a girl who faked the fact that tapping something was too complex to understand…possibly the most pathetic thing she's ever heard.

Even more so if she wasn't truly pretending.

"You know, from what I've heard about Justin's previous girlfriends, I shouldn't be surprised. She's a pretty good mix I'd say."

Alex feels her forehead crinkle. "A mix of them?"

Shaking her head, she gives Alex one of those placating looks she hates so much. Like her mother does when she's trying to do something domestic she's ordered her to do. "No." She leans closer to Alex, wary expression on her face. "Alex, I don't want to offend you with this, but it's more the fact that she's a mix of the other girlfriends and…" Trailing off, Juliet bites her lip again and Alex is too confused to be concerned about any potential blood.

"And…?" she prompts.

"Well, honestly," she says it like she's dreading a math test or something, "you."

There's this rushing sound in her ears and she thinks she maybe loses her vision for just a second and then there is the whole hallucination thing because no way did Juliet just say what Alex thinks she said.

"Me?"

Juliet nods.

"That…that…" She has no words. Seriously. No words are coming. "I forgot how to think."

"I'm not trying to be mean here," Juliet insists. "I don't think Justin realizes it either."

"Realizes what?" Alex demands, feeling the beginnings of a migraine. "That his liar of an ex girlfriend is insane and he's better off without her." Jumping to her feet, Alex stalks into the sub shop, past her parents and into the lair where she can fume in private.

"Alex."

Alex spins, glaring. "Would you stop doing that? And how'd you get past my parents?"

"Invisible," she reminds her. "Alex, I hate that I ruined probably our only pleasant conversation but I was only trying to be honest with you."

Crossing her arms over her chest she fixes her expression on the other girl and glares at her harder than she's probably ever glared at anyone in her entire life. And that's saying something. "By saying that my brother's nerve grating date is like me and that's what he sees in her? Yeah, please lie to me from now on. It should be easy; just pretend I'm Justin." She starts pacing in front of the table, her nerves blazing and sparking underneath her skin.

Juliet sits down on the bench and watches Alex as she makes path after path after path over the stone floor.

"Okay, let's discuss this theory of yours." Having run it over in her head, Alex decides that she needs to know exactly how this crazy theory came about if for no other reason than to debunk it.

Sitting herself a bit more primly (and Alex moves her firmly into the dislike category just for that) in her seat, Juliet folds her hands in her lap like some medieval schoolgirl. Then Alex remembers that she actually was one at one time. Or close enough to it. She takes a deep breath and looks Alex square in the eye. "Justin showed me a picture of his first girlfriend, Miranda, and she looked exactly like you."

What? "Psh. She so did not."

With a roll of her eyes, Juliet goes on. "Yeah, she did. Take away the Avril clothes and the Elvira makeup and she could have been your twin."

Well that's just…ludicrous. So they were the same height and same build and both had dark hair and eyes. Big deal. So did a lot of other girls.

Which is what she tells Juliet.

"And," she adds, "what about the Blonde Brigade, present company included. I wouldn't say any of you look like me."

"No, but there was Isabella."

Nose wrinkling, Alex wracks her brain but can't place the name. "Who?"

"Werewolf."

Oh yeah. "All I remember about that is that Justin's fur got all over the living room and broke the vacuum."

Re-crossing her legs, all ladylike and irritating, Juliet leans forward. "From what I've heard, the only reason Justin didn't run screaming when he heard the word 'werewolf' was because he was trying to prove that he genuinely knew her. To you. He wanted to prove you wrong, Alex."

So maybe she has a point there. Unsubtle signals and heavily emphasized words flit through her head for a second before she blinks the memories away. "And Mom and Dad."

Does she have a point here, or just speculation?

"None of those girls were anything like me," Alex insists. "Any of them. I don't like Tears of Blood, I don't exclusively date baseball players, and most importantly-I'm not half horse."

"But you are cool, and deceptive, and you go after what you want. You have that in common with them," Juliet argues.

"Deceptive?" She's not buying it.

Juliet shrugs. "If you were a Centaur, would you admit it over the World Wide Wiz Web to a guy you like?"

Ugh. Another good point. This is getting frustrating.

Exasperated and queasy, Alex sinks down onto the chair that sits cattycorner to the bench Juliet is sitting on. "This makes my head hurt."

Sympathetic eyes and all, Juliet walks over and sits on the arm on Alex's chair. She puts an arm around Alex's shoulder which is promptly shaken off.

"Alex," Juliet begins, "are you okay?"

She snorts. "Yeah, I'm just peachy."

"If it makes you feel any better," Juliet offers, tone dripping with such (too much) sincerity, "I've seen weirder things in my time. I have been around a while you know. This kind of thing wasn't so uncommon in the royal courts."

"It doesn't." Tilting her head to look up at the older (ancient) girl, Alex narrows her eyes and asks, "Earlier, you said you can tell when a relationship is coming to an end. How?"

Juliet blows out a long breath, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. "There's no one thing. Every relation ship is different. But, it's like the brunette werewolf in a sea of blondes. All patterns have an anomaly."

Alex's head is really pounding now and the school talk is not helping. "What was it with Justin?"

"Well, he kept talking about our future and how things were going to be in a year, two years," Juliet states, "but when you've been around a few centuries you learn not to plan for things that are susceptible to change."

"Things like feelings?"

Shaking her head, Juliet clarifies. "Things that are repressed. Denial is the enemy of a healthy relationship."

"Now you're not even making sense, not that what you said before made all that much."

Juliet laughs. "It is a bit much to take in all at once, I know. But knowing is always better than not knowing, Alex, trust me. When it comes to Justin, you are always going to come first."

"I'm his sister and I'm prone to making messes," she argues, can't really help it. "He does the same thing for Max."

When Juliet contradicts that statement, the hairs stand up on the back of Alex' neck because it makes her fully comprehend that it's the truth.

"Justin rescues Max because he's his big brother and that's his job," Juliet says. "He loves him, so he does it. But that's all it is. You…he looks forward to it, Alex. He likes to show off for you. Justin wants to impress you, make you proud of him."

"Oh God." Alex tucks her head between her knees, afraid she's going to be sick.

Juliet rubs her back as her stomach contracts. "Say something, anything," Alex pleads. "Distract me."

After a few seconds Juliet tells her she met the Bronte sisters once. "That line, in _Wuthering Heights_, "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," Emily totally stole that from her sister. It was supposed to be part of this whole exposition scene in _Jane Eyre_-"

Alex cuts her off with a black look, righting herself in her chair. As is something like that would cheer her up.

Once they're both fairly well convinced that she's not going to be sick all over the floor of the lair, Juliet leaves. "It's funny," Juliet says, "that if I hadn't told you the truth, we could have been friends eventually." She makes to leave, stopping right as she's about to disappear from Alex's sight. "The Bronte line, the same souls, that line always reminded me of you and Justin. Just so you know."

She stays in the lair so long that she misses dinner and ignores her phone when it rings. Her parents saw her come in the lair; no doubt they'll think to look here for her eventually. Unless they forgot of course.

Justin is the one who comes looking for her in just the right place, like always.

"What happened to your date?"

He makes a face at her and sits in their dad's chair across. "She had an art class."

"Art class?" She wonders of he'll get suspicious of her looking around the room for bats. This has to be some sort of set up.

Nodding, Justin picks up a book and opens it to a page at random. "Yeah. She's taking advanced classes at NYU, very selective. She wants to be a comic book illustrator." He relays that information with such importance, such smug superiority of a fact that has nothing to do with him, she craves nothing more than to smack him for his bragging and for proving Juliet's point.

As if Justin even cares what this chick wants to do. She'll be gone soon enough anyway, just like the rest of them. They always are.

Shaking her head, hoping it clears away the doubts and the butterflies, she walks over and pats his shoulder. "Justin, when you finally get it, it's so not going to be pretty."

"Get what?" he asks, following her out of the lair.

She doesn't answer, doesn't look back at him. Just grins to herself and walks up the stairs, Justin calling up to her from the bottom. "Alex! Get what?"

……

end.

……

_No offense intended to the Bronte sisters or their fans. It's just a very Justin/Alex line to me._

_Opening quotes are from __**'ocho, i utter what I dare not speak'**__, one of the absolute best Jacob/Bella stories out there. If you're a fan of their awesomeness then go look the author up and prepare for fantasticness._


End file.
